View full sizeSeven-time lottery winner Richard Lustig will share some of his winning tips at the Broadway Theatre of Pitman, Saturday.Photo provided

Richard Lustig is proof that winning the lottery has nothing to do with luck.

Well, at least luck had nothing to do with it when he won the lottery — a total of seven times. And they were all grand prizes, he said.

It all began with the simple purchase of lottery tickets. The Florida resident “was just buying lottery tickets and losing 99 percent of the time like everyone else,” he said.

“I was throwing my money down the drain,” he said.

So instead of throwing that money away, Lustig — who will share some of his lottery-winning tips at the Broadway Theatre of Pitman, Saturday — thought there had to be a way to win. He brainstormed and put some of his ideas to work.

“Some ideas didn’t work out. So I kept coming up with more stuff that did work,” he said. “Eventually I started winning.”

He wasn’t winning any big prizes yet, but he did take home small cash prizes worth $50 or $75.

“I started to realize I was developing something that would work, and the next thing I knew, I won a big grand prize,” Lustig said.

Then he won his second, third and fourth grand prize.

“That’s when I knew I had a method, that this was really working,” he said.

The Lottery Wizard— Richard Lustig

When: Saturday, Dec. 22 at 7 p.m.

“They realized no one can be that lucky. People would come up to me and ask, ‘What’s your secret?’” he said.

It's a secret no more. Lustig, now known as a lottery expert, is the author of “Learn How to Increase Your Chance of Winning the Lottery,” a book that he admitted wouldn’t have been written if it wasn’t for the encouragement of his son.

“I started telling people my method ... and then my teen son pops up and says to me, ‘Dad, you’re missing the boat here. You need to write a book,’” he said.

What started out as just eight pages of tips, grew into a manuscript of 40 pages, enough to pitch to a publisher.

“I got a publisher and the night it went to print, I won my seventh grand prize lottery,” Lustig said.

He frantically called his publisher to tell them to hold off on printing the book.

“On the front of the book, it said ‘Six-time grand prize lottery winner,’” he said.

The number six was crossed out and a seven was added, Lustig said.

“It worked,” he said.

For his appearance in Pitman, Lustig promised to share some good tips with the audience. He doesn’t want to give too much away, though.

“It’s all in my book,” he said.

Lustig did share two tips: first, set a lottery budget and second, avoid the quick picks.

“Never, never buy the quick picks. That’s the one thing people always do that’s wrong. They are a computer-generated set of numbers. They are different sets of numbers and, with different sets of numbers, your odds are always going to be worse."

Always pick your own numbers.

“What do you do after you pick your numbers? Research your numbers. Mark them down and keep playing the same set of numbers over and over again,” he said.

Lustig stressed that his method isn’t for the “casual” lottery player. It’s not for those players who only buy a ticket when the jackpot reaches $250 million.

“What? Isn’t $40 million enough for you?” he said with a laugh.

“This is real. It’s not a scam. This is not a joke,” he said. “Look at the testimonials on my website. This really does work.”